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Postal Service

Waiting for a turnaround

M Abul Ka lam Azad
For centuries, postal services around the world reigned supreme as the most popular mode of communications.
But with the advances in communications technologies and emergence of private courier services, people's reliance on the traditional postal service has significantly declined.
The only way the postal service in any country can now survive or regain its importance is by introducing new services.
But until recently, Bangladesh Post Office (BPO) has not seen it coming. It sat idle as its business dipped below the red. In the meantime, private courier services took over most of its letter and parcel handling, while people turned to the internet for sending emails and making overseas calls.
The BPO has a 39,000-strong workforce in 9,886 offices dotted across the country, but these resources have remained mostly unutilised.
The BPO has come to such a pass because the authorities did not have any vision for the sector for decades, nor did they show any interest or expertise in redefining the business, insiders observe.
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After the liberation, there has been no investment or initiative to revamp the department until 2009. All this while, neither any modern equipment has been installed nor the existing staff trained. Hundreds of post offices across the country have in the meantime become dilapidated for lack of maintenance.
By 2009, BPO's businesses came to be limited to the handling of mails and parcels, postal savings banks, saving certificates and postal life insurance.
But people are no longer drawn to these services, and the only mails the department now handles are those from government offices.
As a result, the BPO incurred a loss of Tk 200 crore in the 2009-10 fiscal year and Tk 74 crore the following year. In the
2011-12 fiscal year, its loss stood at about Tk 150 crore.
Officials, however, say BPO's loss should not be determined this way as it is a public service institution that serves people at a low cost.
"People now don't go to the post office as its services are very poor. In contrast, private banks and courier services are giving quick and better services. So, we go there," Yasin Ali, a retired schoolteacher at Atgharia in Pabna, told The Daily Star.
Most people who were asked about the postal services echoed the same.
The sorry state of the BPO has opened up avenues for private banks and courier services. For instance, due to the shortage of delivery vans and poor delivery system, businesspeople have stopped using the govern-
ment postal service.
In efforts to turn things around, the BPO has taken several new steps. Though late, these steps since 2010-11 have been yielding good returns.
But it will take at least another two years to see the full benefits coming, said Sudhangshu Shekhar Bhadra, additional post master general.
He said the BPO over the last two years introduced Electronic Money Transfer Service (EMTS), Postal Cash Card and mobile banking service (see separate story for more detail about these services).
“The feedback is very positive and we are going to take more such steps soon," he added.
He said the BPO needed full digitisation of all the post offices. It also needs to hire about one lakh agents across the country
to implement the new plans.
"Our main strength is our network, which covers even the remote areas. People also have confidence in us," said Bhadra, adding, post offices could be used for making any types of payment from anywhere in the country.
Besides, the department is renovating the dilapidated post offices and constructing new ones. A project was also undertaken to buy 250 new vans for enhancing its courier service.
About the decades of delay in taking new initiatives, he said the Post Office Act, 1898, had been an obstacle. Amendments to the Act in 2010 removed that obstacle, paving the way for digitisation of the department and introduction of modern services.